The Scout Association has started a competition between all the Scout sections across the country in relation to the Olympics that are happening this year. At last weeks meeting we did a few of these suggested activities from this competition. The first game we played was co-operation circles, all the scouts stood in a circle with a cane and a leader shouted out how many places to go either left or right they had to let go of the cane they had and get hold of the one that was shouted out. We played a few rounds of this before playing Diversity Bingo, the aim of the game was to fill out the bingo board with names of people within the troop that had done these things. With a prize going to the first person with a vertical / horizontal line and the last prize for bingo.

The final activity of the evening was extreme Sandwich making, the patrols were split up into pairs (or almost pairs) and within these pair the aim was to make a sandwich…. sounds easy until you are blind folded and have to be directly through making your sandwich by your partner. The sandwiches they had to make were cheese and ham sandwiches with butter. There were some interesting sandwiches by the end of the activity, cutting the cheese and buttering the bread turned out to be the hardest things to judge and so you could get a very uneven sandwich.

The last game of the night was a little cut short due to the number of badges that were needed to be presented and also the investiture of one of our Scouts.

Just a few things to remember:

Subs for this term are due

We need newspaper for next weeks activity

District Winter Camp is coming up so if you are interested get your forms in as soon as possible.

Thank you to everyone that came to Remembrance Sunday yesterday we had an almost full house for it. There was great representation from every section of 15th Scouts with us having over 50 children there.

It was much better weather than normal with beautiful blue sky shining down on us as we stood for our two minutes silence at the war memorial.

It was a quite evening after the half term break with only 12 scouts joining us for the evening. So rather than doing the global activities that were planned we decided to do fire-lighting and with some leftovers from the District first aid weekend we hoped to make Campfire Doughnuts.

Before we got going we did a quick recap on how to use an axe because unfortunately due to the wet weather during the day there was not much kindling to help light the fires meaning we had to make our own. Using the scouts were split into two groups to sort out there fire ensuring that the three things needed for a fire where correct (heat, oxygen, fuel). In a short time both groups had managed to get there fires light and were adding the larger pieces of wood to ensure it would not go out and would be hot enough to cook on.

While the Scouts had been lighting the fires a leader had been busy in the kitchen creating batter for the camp doughnuts and buttering and jamming alot of bread.

With time running short we had a quick game of quarter ball in patrols before the end of the evening.

Do not forget that there are some subs still outstanding for this term, please ensure that you bring the money along at the next meeting.

Last Monday we had a go at DIY Golf. Lacking the landscape of St Andrews, we made do with what was in our store to create our very own crazy golf course. Some were more playable than others. With 40 minutes to construct their hole, there was a variety of ‘craziness’ involved, with drainpipes used to create an elevated run and tug of war robe used to shape an area of the course. Once the course was completed, each patrol was given a scorecard, with five minutes to play each hole. At the end of the evening the scores were averaged out, with Kestrels winning the challenge.

We also played a great game this evening. Most people were sat in the circle, alternating teams (red/yellow) with six sitting on the ‘sofa’ outside of the circle. Everyone got a card with someone else’s name on it – and had to move when that name was called out (not their name). the aim was to get all six people sitting on the sofa from the same team. It was a good test of memory!

Firstly I’ll like to apologise for the lack of updates to the site I’m not sure where the time has gone over the last few weeks. So here is a recap of the two photography evenings that we have done recently.

The aim of the photography evening was to do all the parts towards the photography badge, with just the final section for the scouts to bring in some photographs to complete the badge. All the requirements for the badge can be found on scouts.org.uk.

Within their patrols the scouts did two bases each week to learn about photography and stop motion film making. The first base was depth of field, this shows how the camera can focus on an object near and far. Using close up shots of a boot, we looked at how focussing on different aspects of the object changed the image. More information about Depth of Field can be found on Wikipedia. Another base was looking at how exposure length altered photographs. There are lots of examples of this on the internet – for example we looked at these pictures. Stop motion pictures were done using lego to make mini movies, with photographs taken after every move. Finally, scouts got the opportunity to look at colour balance in photography.

All Scouts who completed the two photography evenings and can provide evidence of their photography skills – using six photographs in different styles – will get the photography badge.

Don’t forget Scouts tonight, we will be at the Scout hut as normal and we will be continuing the final the photography badge. All the bases over the last two weeks have been to help towards the badge. If you would like to obtain the badge the only things left that you need to do are bring along some of your own photographs on a memory stick or camera so that we can take a look at them.

Also remember that subs are due for this term, more subs envelopes will be handed out tonight to those that are missing.